I agree with you on the building up of disasters to the point of silliness. But I know a lot of writers think that's what they're supposed to do.

Interestingly...though I have that opinion, I realized during this discussion that it looks like I'm doing escalating bad guys from The House of Red to Full Circle and beyond. It's not intentional. It just seems to be happening. If you're going the long haul, it really doesn't make sense. Cos at some point you can't go any farther.